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The Hebrew Bible As Crisis Literature

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The Hebrew Bible As Crisis Literature The Hebrew Bible as Crisis Literature THOMAS RÖMER 1. Introduction If one wanted to describe the content of the Hebrew Bible with a single slogan the expression “crisis literature” would be a fitting term for a major part of the writings that constitute this collection. Many texts of different literary genres, like narratives, prophetic oracles, psalms, and lamentations construct the destruction of Jerusalem and the “Babylonian Exile” as the major caesura of the history of Israel and Judah but also as the starting point of a new beginning. On the historical level it can indeed be claimed that the events of 597 and 587 BCE were in a certain way the starting point for the rise of Judaism since they brought the traditional Judean religion to an end. And as we will see this Judaism is at the beginning above all a the- ological construction of members of the Babylonian Golah. They used the Babylonian exile as a new origin myth for legitimating the “true Israel”. It has been objected from time to time that the so-called “crisis” of 597 and 587 is more an invention of biblical scholars than a historical reality and that the deportations that took place in 701 during the siege of Jerusa- lem by the Assyrians were more important and had greater economical consequences than the events of 597 and 587.1 It may be true that the mod- ern scholar’s focus on the fall of Jerusalem is partially the result of the Bible’s construction of history, which leads sometimes to neglect impor- tant events and changes in the North (Samaria) during the Assyrian, Baby- lonian and Persian periods. On the other hand the collapse of the kingdom of Judah and the destruction of the Jerusalem palace and temple, its politi- cal and religious symbol, certainly provoked a major crisis. Of course, the idea of the “empty land” and the exile of “all Judah”, which can be found at the end of the book of Kings (2 Kgs 25:21: “So Judah was carried away captive out of his land”) does not reflect historical reality, as shown already by other biblical accounts as Jer 40–42 or the book of Lamenta- tions. Recent archaeological works on the situation of Judah after 597 sug- 1 Cf. GUILLAUME, Jerusalem 586 BC. 160 Thomas Römer gest, however, that the Judean population decreased in an important way.2 Contrary to earlier estimations, which allowed for a very low percentage of exiled Judeans, recent publications tend to increase this amount; those esti- mations vary nowadays between 20 to 60% (which, by the way, shows that the interpretations of archaeological data is as speculative as exegesis). The Babylonians apparently destroyed major parts of the Judean territory and the remaining population gathered mostly in Benjamin (Oded Lip- schits estimates the remaining population about 30,000 people).3 Jerusa- lem, largely devastated, had lost its status as a capital, Mizpa had become the administrative center and Bethel perhaps the major YHWH-sanctuary in Judah during the Babylonian period. For the Judeans, and especially for the upper class of Jerusalem (court and temple officials – scribes, prophets, clergy –, merchants, craftsmen), the destruction of the Judean capital constituted a political, economical and also an ideological crisis. And this crisis necessitated a reflection about the reasons and the future after the collapse. But let us first say a few words about the concept of crisis.4 2. The Usages of the Term of “Crisis” in European Languages The Greek word krísis derives from the verb krínô, the primary meaning of which is ‘to separate, to distinguish, to decide’. The word is mainly used in three contexts. In a juridical sense the knowledge of krísis guarantees the stability and the appropriate administration of the politea (Aristotle). The Septuagint uses the juridical connotation of the word in order to translate roots like r-y-b or š-p-. From there it takes in certain prophetical and apo- calyptic texts an eschatological meaning and designates God’s final judg- ment in favor of his people. This eschatological meaning of krísis appears equally in texts of the New Testament. Since the second century (Galie- nus), krísis is also used in a medical context in order to designate the “crit- ical” moment in the evolution of an illness, where either the process of healing starts or the definitive decline of the patient. Interestingly, as ob- served several times, the word “crisis” enters massively into the major European languages, English, French, and German, around the eighteenth century related to situations that precede or follow the French Revolution. The concept of crisis is used there in the three senses that the term has already in Greek. 2 Cf. especially BARSTAD, Land. 3 Cf. LIPSCHITS, Changes, 363. 4 For the following (and the bibliographical references of the quoted works) see RÖMER, Littérature. The Hebrew Bible as Crisis Literature 161 The eschatological connotation appears in Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s work, who believes that the ineluctable coming crisis of the established order will give birth to an ideal society in which all men will be equal. In the same sense, Thomas Paine’s study, “The Crisis”, claims that the French revolution is the necessary crisis whose outcome is the abolishment of despotism. The medical or pathological usage of the concept of the term of crisis underlies the analysis of the French revolution in more conservative circ- les. For the British liberal Edmund Burke the astonishing crisis of the e- vents of the Revolution in France can only be overcome by purification through fire and blood. In the Romantic Movement in Germany some intel- lectuals are attracted by the idea of the mythical origins in which all major religious and political institutions are founded and legitimated. A third “analytical” usage of the term “crisis” occurs in works that try to understand the reasons that provoke crises. Saint Simon and August Comte are among the firsts to elaborate a theory about the apparition of major crises in the history of humanity. This attitude leads to a historiogra- phy of crises, as can be found a century later in the work of the Swiss Ja- cob Burckhardt who elaborates a phenomenology of crisis, showing that a crisis is a priori neither positive nor negative. He also claims that most cri- ses can only be understood and analyzed a posteriori. The concept of crisis has become a tool for the historian and sociologist. Armin Steil, in his book “Krisensemantik”, summarizes these three attitudes towards a “cri- sis” in the following way,5 by using a terminology that is inspired by the work of Max Weber: Prophet Priest Mandarin Situation Marginal Representative of High Officials the former power Legitimization Personal Tradition Intellectual inspiration instruction Crisis Hope for a better Construction of Historiography Management future mythical origins Reference Utopia Myth “History” The attitude of the “Prophet” considers the crisis as the beginning of a new era. The representatives of this view are people who stand somewhat at the margins of society, but who are nevertheless able to communicate their views. They legitimate their discourse by appealing to personal inspiration. The “priestly attitude” reflects the position of representatives of the col- lapsed social, political, and religious structures. Their way to overcome the crisis is to valorize the time of the “origins” and the God-given institutions 5 Cf. STEIL, Krisensemantik, passim. 162 Thomas Römer that reflect the divine will. The so-called “mandarin position” sums up the attitude of high officials who try to construct a discourse in order to under- stand the irruption of the crisis. They also try to maintain their former pri- vileges by the construction of a historiography, which provides the reasons for the breakdown of the former structures and which makes them appear as the experts of “history”. Interestingly, Steil did invent this terminology without any allusion to the Bible. His model seems to me a very helpful model for discerning the biblical semantics about the crisis of 587 and its management in different intellectual groups. 3. Why Does the Fall of Jerusalem Constitute a (Theological) “Crisis”? The destruction of Jerusalem was not the first “crisis” in the history of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. The fall of Samaria in 722 was certainly a national catastrophe, but since the Hebrew Bible is a Judean product we do not know the Northern reactions to this crisis. The end of Israel was per- haps understood in Judah as a sign that Judah was in fact the “real” people of YHWH. The seventh century edition of 2 Kgs 17 possibly ended with the affirmation: Therefore Yhwh was very angry with Israel and removed them out of his sight; none was left but the tribe of Judah alone (v. 18).6 The Assyrian campaign to Judah during the last years of the eighth century provoked massive destructions and also deportations, maybe even more important than those of 597 and 587, and the kingdom of Judah shrunk drastically.7 But in the historical memory as transmitted by the biblical ac- count these events were not understood as a crisis. The reason was the un- successful siege of Jerusalem in 701 from which the Assyrians under Sen- nacherib had to withdraw. The crisis management consisted in a transfor- mation of a military and economical disaster into a victory and the celebra- tion of the national god YHWH defending his holy mountain of Zion, as formulated in Ps 46 and others. This view of a national God protecting his sanctuary and his people apparently prevailed during the seventh century. Manasseh, who is detested by the exilic and postexilic redactors of the book of Kings, succeeded to behave towards the Assyrians in such a way 6 GRAY, Kings, 591; there are however also arguments that this verse belongs to the exilic edition of the DtrH, cf., for instance, WÜRTHWEIN, Könige, 395–397.
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